“I’m an introvert, surrounded by extroverts,” chuckles Dr Anthony Tucker, Director of the Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) division in the Liberia Ministry of Health. It is a light-hearted moment during the exercise on team member strengths and differences on Day 2 of the team’s onboarding workshop with AMP Health in Monrovia in January 2022 – work supported by a grant from the Helmsley Charitable Trust. But the moment also conveys an important message about preferred working styles, which is not lost on the astute medical doctor-turned administrator tasked with marshalling the country’s response to NCDs such as Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and cancers.

With its three-year follow-on investment, LGT VP seeks to help AMP Health grow from working in seven countries and 10 Ministry of Health (MOH) teams to 19 countries and 23 MOH teams by 2024.

The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust today announced a new $3 million, three-year grant to AMP Health to strengthen leadership and management skills in teams that are responsible for managing Type 1 diabetes (T1D) and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the Ministries of Health of Liberia, Malawi and Mozambique.

COVID-19 brought into sharp focus the importance of equitable and resilient health systems, and there is a common understanding of the need to ensure access to routine health care and minimize the impact of a disease outbreak on emergency room care. Yet, without substantial new investment in preventing, diagnosing and treating disease around the world, billions of people will continue to live with slow-burning health threats such as malaria in parallel with increasing global vulnerability to emerging infectious diseases.

We’ve had the pleasure of working with a Management Partner. I think this has really accelerated the progress of our team. Without this support, it would have required much more time for us to get to the point where we are today – and we don’t have that time during COVID-19!

When bringing the private and public sector together, the biggest challenge is often establishing trust. Those who work in the public sector may be suspicious that the private sector is motivated only by profit or does not understand the complexity of getting things done while managing political processes. Meanwhile, people in the private sector often see their public sector counterparts as overly bureaucratic and inefficient.

It is important to bear in mind that COVID-19, as devastating as it has been - and we are early in this pandemic - is only one disease. We cannot allow the dream of creating a more resilient, more equitable and more sustainable health system to also become a casualty of this pandemic.

Like so many organisations around the world, we have had to adapt to working within the constraints of a global pandemic. We believe that our work with ministries of health is more important now that ever. The teams we work with are facing unprecedented challenges and need our support.

LGT Venture Philanthropy (LGT VP), a charitable foundation based in Zurich, Switzerland, today announced a new engagement to support the Aspen Management Partnership for Health (AMP Health).

In January, AMP Health hosted its sixth Leadership Lab in Livingstone, Zambia. Leadership Lab is an annual convening that brings together all AMP Health partner programs for intensive and immersive leadership & management training and serves as a platform for sharing best practices across countries and teams.